


Cache

by deathwailart



Series: Damhnait Mahariel [5]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied Relationships, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-11 09:25:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2062794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damhnait Mahariel leaves the Wardens to find her clan.  On the way she finds something she and Tamlen hid away for the future they'd planned.</p>
<p>Written for the 30 day drabble challenge: cache</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cache

She's not so dramatic as Morrigan in the end but it's a close thing.  
  
She left the Wardens – Nathaniel in charge because he's not a fool and she trusts him most of those who still remain – to search for Morrigan though her heart hasn't been with the Wardens for some time, if it ever was. She never asked to be a Warden and it's the regret she's carried since she first awoke in camp to the news of Tamlen being gone. They forced her to leave to save her life. Sent her away with tears in her eyes to follow after a shem. At least Duncan was honourable and allowed her to grieve in silence with whatever remained of her dignity, never trying to diminish it, only reminding her that all her clan faced this grief if the Blight was not stopped.  
  
It's seeing Ariane though that she takes a sign and she's got all she needs in her pack as she leaves where they once fought the Mother, when she was already so tired, gifted a title she never wanted, forced to deal with problems that aren't hers with walls of stone all around her. One of her people and it makes her ache and remember how it ended with Velanna, the angry words and her just being gone, the one true friend she had who understood, someone she could complain with and talk with and share history with. The one person who made her feel anything since Tamlen's death when she thought that part of her life was over.  
  
This is a duty she's meant to carry until the day she dies but she saved them from a Blight and it's cost her enough already so she asks Ariane to see the mage safely back to his Circle unless he wishes to run and says they'll meet again one day.  
  
She prays by the corpse of the Varterral and smiles at her hound, that thin little smile that still feels more real than any smile on her face since she saw Ashalle when she was named hero and was granted the boon of land for their people. She removes the boots she wears because she doesn't want to fit in but life is easier when she does but that doesn't matter now because she's going home, she's leaving and they can make of it what they will, a lost daughter who can tell them the truth of Tamlen, who will see the new child who bears his name. She'll protect the clan in their new home and perhaps she'll find Velanna on the way and bring her to them, to give her a new life, a place where they can be who they wish to be.  
  
Ferelden is an ugly land these days. She walks roads and paths her feet know so well and she feels no pain or exhaustion as she wanders, drawing glances because her face is known enough and it's not every day that a lone Dalish elf wanders the roads with a hulking mabari at her side. The kaddis is one she made herself when she told the dog the story of a Keeper and his hound. Across his paws and over his muzzle she invokes Elgar'nan for destruction. Mythal's protection over his chest. Andruil's prowess down his back and across his brow. At his sides she paints the symbols to keep the Dread Wolf from their path as she shows him all the places she has been before he was at her side. She camps where she did once, not with the clan but on nights with other hunters or when it was her and Tamlen and she could feel his heart beat beneath her palm or against her chest or back.  
  
It's not the same, curling close to her dog, but it's more than she's had in so long.  
  
She's hunting one day when she finds it, buried in a rotting tree – it wasn't rotting then, it was young but tall and strong when she and Tamlen found it, it's one more thing left scarred by the Blight – and she falls to her knees and makes a sound that no one should make. A low wailing moan of pain and a sorrow she thought buried as she prises a leather wrapped bundle from the dying tree, clutching it to her like a child. She knows it, remembers the life she had planned where she and Tamlen would wed and teach their children to be hunters like them, the names they picked already, the knife they wrapped, the wooden halla they took from Ilen. There are rings in there, crudely carved, a book of stories with pages left.  
  
She spends two days with the bundle in her lap, her dog bringing her back a rabbit she doesn't eat.  
  
On the third day she adds the bundle to her pack, leaving it wrapped. A gift for the new child bearing Tamlen's name, living in the lands she was granted for all her struggles.  
  
Ferelden has had all of her that it will have, whatever's left is for her alone.


End file.
